Archive for the ‘religion’ Category

It’s always sad to see someone’s life cut short by disease, and no disease is more frightening than pancreatic cancer.

It is swift and inevitable.

For people of a certain age, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a constant light through our adult lives. We didn’t necessarily admire the guy; some, in fact, were pretty adamant in disliking him and his company . . . and its products, business model and manufacturing practices.

What he represented to my generation, however, was more the constant renewal and reinvention that living in the USA in the age of information was supposed to bring us.

Now that he’s gone, the horizon seems a lot more forbidding.

Part of Jobs’ legend is that he was a zen Buddhist. And at times like these, the zen story (“koan”) of the monk and the strawberry always comes to mind.

Though I always thought the iMac was a clever bit of packaging and marketing, I could never figure out why it came in “flavors”, and who could have possibly decided that “strawberry” should be one of those, I can’t even imagine.

Now that the tigers are getting closer and the mice are nearly gnawed all the way through the vine, now I think maybe whatever flavor a person likes . . . is whatever flavor a person likes.